BREVITAS

RECOVERED HISTORY: WHAT KIND OF MAN OWNS HIS OWN COMPUTER?

OBAMALAND

Of the 204 officials Obama has named to date and who require Senate confirmation, 20 are Hispanic, 9.8 percent. At the end of the first year of the George W. Bush administration, of 608 positions, 34 went to Hispanics, 6 percent, while with Bill Clinton of 670 appointments 30 were Latino, 4 percent. Twenty six Hispanics work inside the White House in a variety of roles.

Cato - President Obama promised on the campaign trail that he would have the most transparent administration in history. As part of this commitment, he said that the public would have five days to look online and find out what was in the bills that came to his desk before he signed them. . . He has now signed 11 bills into law and gone, at best, 1 for 11 on his five-day posting promise.

JUSTICE & FREEDOM

Asian Journal - In a press conference in LA, Multi-ethnic Immigrant Workers Organizing Network and Pilipino Workers Center announced that a $13M settlement has been won in their lawsuit against the Los Angeles City government for the inhumane police actions of the LAPD against the MIWON march and rally on international workers day two years ago. All of the peaceful demonstrators that suffered from the wrongful police actions on May 1st, 2007 at the MIWON march and rally will be eligible to receive compensation for the violation. . . The march had a multi-ethnic mix of participants, including a significant contingent from the Filipino-American community. When the police began to disperse the crowd, the Filipinos there were also forced to fl ee, which violated their rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of speech. "We never heard a warning. Suddenly the police were firing tear gas and rubber-bullets into the crowd," stated Strela Cervas, active volunteer of Pilipino Workers Center.

ECO CLIPS

Reuters - An area of an Antarctic ice shelf almost the size of New York City has broken into icebergs this month after the collapse of an ice bridge widely blamed on global warming, a scientist said. "The northern ice front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf has become unstable and the first icebergs have been released," Angelika Humbert, glaciologist at the University of Muenster in Germany, said of European Space Agency satellite images of the shelf. Humbert told Reuters about 700 sq km (270.3 sq mile) of ice -- bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York City -- has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs.

John Vidal, Guardian - Extensive climate change is now affecting every form of life in the Arctic, according to a major new assessment by international polar scientists. In the past four years, air temperatures have increased, sea ice has declined sharply, surface waters in the Arctic ocean have warmed and permafrost is in some areas rapidly thawing. In addition, says the report released at a Norwegian government seminar, plants and trees are growing more vigorously, snow cover is decreasing 1-2% a year and glaciers are shrinking. . . In northern Alaska, temperatures have been rising since the 1970s. In Russia, the tree line has advanced up hills and mountains at 10 meters a year. . . The most striking change in the Arctic in recent years has been the reduction in summer sea ice in 2007. This was 23% less than the previous record low of 5.6m sq kilometers in 2005, and 39% below the 1979-2000 average. . . The Greenland ice sheet has continued to melt in the past four years with summer temperatures consistently above the long-term average since the mid 1990s. . . Melting lasted 20 days longer than usual at sea level and 53 days longer at 2-3,000m heights. . . In 2007, some ice-free areas were as much as 5C warmer than the long-term average

Observer, UK - A third of the world's oceans must be closed to fishing if depleted stocks are to recover, scientists and conservation groups have warned. Such a measure could "set the clock back 200 years" and reverse the decline in fish populations, after which responsible fisheries management could regenerate the industry. Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York, has reviewed 100 scientific papers identifying the scale of closure needed. "All are leaning in a similar direction," he says, "which is that 20 to 40% of the sea should be protected."

MID EAST

Guardian - Obama's signature campaign slogan, Yes We Can, has been replicated by the Iranian president in a promotional video issued for Iran's presidential poll on 12 June, when Ahmadinejad is seeking re-election. The video features a cover picture of Ahmadinejad wearing his trademark white jacket and pointing to the Farsi phrase Ma Mitavanim (We Can) on a blackboard. The film is aimed at students and capitalizes on his former status as a university lecturer.

Phil Leggiere, Mondo Globo - A tenured professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Robinson said that his critics have crossed lines of fairness by equating his criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, and that the faculty judicial system is crossing lines that are supposed to protect academic freedom by investigating him. His critics say that he crossed a line of professionalism by sending e-mail to all of the students in one of his courses material about "parallel" images of Nazi and Israeli attacks. Some students view the material as anti-Semitic, and they quit the course and filed a grievance against him. Faculty members are in the process of selecting a panel that will consider the charges against Robinson and determine whether to recommend that a standing faculty panel conduct a full investigation of the incident. . . Robinson is consulting with lawyers and may sue to block the coming proceedings.

ITALY

Reuters - Italy's first family soap opera was back on the front pages after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's wife said his party's selection of women to run in European elections was a "shamelessly trashy" process. Veronica Berlusconi, who has publicly lamented her husband's eye for younger women in the past, also accused him of going to the birthday bash of an 18-year-old woman in Naples but not attending the coming-of-age-parties of his own children. Veronica, 52, who rarely appears with her husband, said she agreed with Italian newspapers' descriptions of her husband's party's choice of female candidates as "entertainment for the emperor," in what newspapers saw as a reference to him.. . . Her 72-year-old husband, speaking to reporters during a trip to Warsaw, said he was sorry his wife had apparently believed "what she read in the papers" and added that it was all "a campaign (against him) hyped by the leftist press."

ART

Guardian, UK - A group of volunteers clearing graffiti from the walls and bus stops in their home town have inadvertently painted over a modern masterpiece – and cost its owner L5,000. The work, attributed to street artist Banksy, depicted Paddington Bear with the caption "Migration is not a crime" and was painted on to a wall owned by Julian Chatt in Glastonbury, Somerset. But well-meaning volunteers painted over the artwork as part of the council's drive to rid the area of graffiti. Chatt said he had struck a deal to sell the piece for about L5,000 and had agreed with the council that it would not be removed. "I'd spoken to the town council in the past and asked them not to paint over the artwork," Chatt told the Western Daily Press.

JUST POLITICS

Dave Lindorff, Counterpunch - With Specter switching his party affiliation to Democrat, the Democrats will finally have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate, and an already solid majority in the House. There will, at that point, be no more excuse for Democrats to duck progressive, liberal, pro-worker, pro-ordinary person issues, using their old-standby excuse of needing to compromise and win over Republican votes. . . So the way I see it, it's time for progressives, for the union movement, for the peace movement, for the environmentalist movement, the single-payer health care reform movement, indeed for all progressive elements in the US, to pour on the pressure to get Congress and President Obama to pass real, progressive legislation in this Congress.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

Politico - The Obama administration declared a "public health emergency" Sunday to confront the swine flu - but is heading into its first medical outbreak without a secretary of Health and Human Services or appointees in any of the department's 19 key posts. President Barack Obama has not yet chosen a surgeon general or the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His choice to run the Food and Drug Administration awaits confirmation.

FROM THE FATAL CONSEQUENCES OF MASTURBATION, 1844

TEN TOP OPPONENTS OF SINGLEPAYER

GREAT THOUGHTS OF MICHELE BACHMAN

GOP Rep. Michele Bachman calls it an "interesting coincidence" that last two swine flu outbreaks occurred under Democratic presidents. In fact, leaving aside whether Democrats wash their hands properly before taking office, the last swine flu outbreak actually occurred when Gerald Ford was president.

INDICATORS

National Women's Law Center: Women are far more likely to live in poverty than men. Women working full-time, year-round are paid only about 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. African-American women earn 69 cents and Latinas earn 59 cents for every dollar paid to men.

POLICE BLOTTER

UPI - Police said a man was selling ice cream from his Blue Bunny van in Suffolk about 8:30 p.m. Saturday when two men approached him with guns and ordered him to exit the vehicle and strip down to his underwear. The driver followed the music still playing from the truck to where the vehicle had been abandoned by the thieves only a few blocks away, police said.

Morning Call, PA - To most people, Elizabeth Marie Grube, 70, and her sister, Elaine Volkert, 65, seemed to be nice, friendly women who lived modest lives in their mobile home park just outside Stroudsburg. But authorities said each sister sold about $10,000 of heroin a week from their trailers tucked off Route 611 in Stroud Township. Investigators believe an Allentown man, Julio Cesar Checo, 28, of 33 S. 17th St., recruited them to sell the heroin and split the profits. . . Volkert's neighbor, Sandy Hunter, said she was fooled. "I never expected this, really," Hunter said. "I couldn't believe it. I never would have expected that from her because she's a nice person." Other neighbors said the women drove older-model vehicles and lived in narrow trailers that rent for about $600 a month. Authorities said the sisters got large shipments of heroin that they packaged into bags that sold for $10 to $20.